Digital Mudslinging

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The Angelides campaign initially linked to the game from its main page, but it recently removed the link and there's no indication on the microsite that the challenger and his team are the creators. The anonymity of the Web, as permitted by the Federal Election Commission's lax policies regarding the Internet, allows candidates like Angelides to portray their opponent in a negative light without coming off as mudslingers themselves.

Negative campaigns can backfire through any medium—but they do so all the more quickly and virally on the Web. Just ask Bob Corker, who's challenging Harold Ford for the Tennessee U.S. Senate seat. Corker pulled a TV ad attacking Ford amid criticism that it played on racial stereotypes. Corker tried to distance himself from the ad, which features a white woman bragging that she met Ford "at a Playboy party." But the ad has lived on with a vengeance on YouTube (recently purchased by Google (GOOG)).

Let Them Sling Mud

Constituent-generated media, as exemplified by political blogs of recent years, has proved that smear campaigning isn't limited to the politicians themselves. Now, online social networks put the mud in the hands of voters.

That may come as especially good news for Democrats. New data from Nielsen//NetRatings show that Republican candidates have a larger constituency on the Internet—36.6% of users 18 and older, compared with 30.8% of users who support Democrats. But the most popular social-networking sites strongly tend toward Democrat and liberal-leaning users. On MySpace, 31.5% of members identify themselves as Democrats, whereas 23.9% say they're Republican. On Facebook, 49.9% of members are Democrats, while just over a quarter, 26%, are Republican.

Embracing social networks may be especially effective for Democrats in parts of the country where young voters are regarded as a key swing demographic, such as in Iowa's third congressional district. There, Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell and Republican challenger Jeff Lamberti both have Facebook profiles. But among the site's users, Boswell has 76% of the support, compared with 24% for Lamberti.

The Nedheads

In the Connecticut U.S. Senate race between Democrat Ned Lamont and incumbent Joseph Lieberman, Lamont supporters calling themselves "Nedheads" created a group on YouTube that has attracted more than 2,000 members and created nearly 500 videos in support of their favored candidate, which in many cases attack Lieberman's policies. One Nedhead post is a music video of "The Find Joe Song," which calls Senator Lieberman a "bottom feeder" who has "bought the race."

A potential pitfall of letting supporters get involved is losing control of the candidate's image or message, be it positive or negative (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/31/06, "A Vote for MySpace"). That wasn't a concern for Lamont's campaign, says Tim Tagaris, the campaign's Internet communications director. "The Nedheads came about organically, and we support meaningful opportunities for people to give their feedback like that," he says.

MacMillan is a reporter at BusinessWeek.com in New York.